A New Year’s Toast to Family, Friendship and Change

2013 was a big year for our family. We packed up our life and moved to Canada from the UK! Through the tears and the newly acquired greys, we’ve managed to survive the journey thus far and are settling into our new home as the winter snow welcomes us in abundance.

Moving our family was, by far, the most nerve-wracking decision that we’ve made but… change is good.

To ring in the New Year, I have written a little rhyming reflection on the year gone by….

2013– a paradoxical run
A year of great changes, wonder and fun
But also of sorrow and bidding farewell
To our family and friends whose lives we knew well

From England to Canada our family did go
A most difficult choice we’d contemplated so
And after John’s 40th– a 1970’s do
We shared our last laughs and bid all adieu

From taxi to airplane our tired eyes cried
Just like those typical Manchester skies
And with a glass of white wine and a deep cleansing breath
A new chapter began – we’d soon write the rest

I’d hoped that the sun might welcome us home
But we landed in clouds, with a thud and a groan
Mom, Jim and Dad-out stretched arms they all stood
Had come to collect us and all of our goods

We set off on our journey, back to my hometown
To connect and to chat about what would go down
Gram was no longer there, she’d passed away
And her memory lingered, surely to stay

The times they were changing so many things new
A new home, a new town to navigate through
The keys to our house were soon in our hands
And so was our future and all of our plans

On Ava’s birthday we moved to our new place
Trepidation and worry all over her face
Would there be children – new friends to meet?
Would it be fun to live on our new street?

The sun, it soon came and the summer did too
John set up his office amidst the wild, crazy zoo
With all the kids home for two months until school
He worked- we unpacked and played in the pool

I felt such a calm, peaceful sense of relief
Like the hard part was over, we’d turned a new leaf
My old friends were here and the laughs carried on
It certainly felt like no time had gone

And so it began- months of settling in
BBQs, discoveries and cocktails (chin, chin)
Our water baby, Zed, swam like a dolphin
And we learned why Bell Canada gets sworn about so often

The school year started without much-to-do
The girls have made friends, even little Minoo
We’ve survived the transition up until now
But the snow has arrived and we don’t have a plow…

And here with my laptop, the fire and our laundry
I know that home is the place that’s upon me
It’s the place where I’m from, the land that I love
It’s the country my kids now sing proudly of

But our hearts are in England and always will be
Of course, that’s where we became a family
It’s my husband’s home and was all of ours too
So lucky we were for the people we knew

But the thing about “knew” is this word exists not
For the word is to “know” and to not be distraught
We’ve got visits and travel plans all underway
We’ll see everyone again, when we visit next May

2014 is for business, friendship and more
It’s for learning and growing and to explore
And of course it’s for family and laughter and life
John knew we’d be uprooted with me as his wife

The journey we’re on is our own- it’s our path
We get one chance to live it, to make happiness last
In 2013 we both sprouted some greys
And new wrinkles have joined us, in these recent days

But change is a good thing, though stressful and scary
We’ll ring in this New Year feeling both blessed and merry
May 2014 refresh and renew you
And may health, love and happiness be yours all year through

Awe, Shannon…what a touching poem! My heart goes out to you for braving such a life-changing move. You captured the emotional a lot of us have experienced. While I didn’t make an intercontinental move, I did leave my ‘life’ in another place a few years ago and boy was it ever hard. So glad to have found your blog! Visiting from SITS.